


Such Stress and Strain

by You_Light_The_Sky



Series: Snow in Mirrors [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Demons, John should have taken up poking rattlesnakes instead, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Snow Demon Sherlock, sad feels, this is not a happy fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:31:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2757950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/You_Light_The_Sky/pseuds/You_Light_The_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time there was a snow demon who tried to be a detective and a human too in love with danger to care. Standalone. Also Prequel to "With a Whimper."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Stress and Strain

**Author's Note:**

> After "With a Whimper" a lot of people asked what Mirror Sherlock was and here's my answer after so many years. Thank you to PrettyArbitrary and Michi_thekiller who were one of the most enthusiastic fans of the piece and asked so much about the lore.
> 
> Warnings: MAJOR character death, unhealthy relationships, unhealthy obsessions, unhealthy coping mechanisms, Sherlock is not nice later on when certain things happen to certain people
> 
> The Title and chapter Title are lines taken from Thomas Hardy's poem "I need not go."
> 
> Unedited, all mistakes are mine

Part 1: New Cares May Claim Me

The ice moves like hungry glass trying to swallow any warmth from the girl the moment she touches him. Her voice makes Sherlock’s head hurt at first and he didn’t think anything of it, when she grabbed his arm (but later, he will berate himself. Should have known better. If the same pattern upholds for all other emotional outbursts and affects all non-living things, then _of course_ , it would affect the living.) But then the ice just jumps on its own, dancing to the crazy concerto of Sherlock’s irritation to silence the cause of it.

Silence, indeed. And a glass girl, silently screaming into the air.

-

John remembers the first time he saw a Sand Demon, the coarse ugly bits of brown and tiny grounded stones, all whistling towards him and darkening the snow. The way its limbs seemed to cut across the perfect white landscape until it blasted poor John back and John felt nothing but stinging _hothothot_ pain as blood dripped down his face.

Dirty blood now. Mixed with sand. Sinking into his veins (oh god, what if it goes into my heart, what if I get infect, what if—) and twisting at the nerves beneath his skin, as if to call the other grains towards John’s wounds and eat him from the inside (isn’t that what they do? Devour?)

He remembers diving into the next pile of snow he sees. Skin stinging from the cold before it felt like home to him and he closed his eyes, hoping the Sand Demon wouldn’t find him at all, hoping that the snow would leak away the sand in his blood, hoping, hoping, hoping and—

There was a rumble. The earth crying out. The sense that the nerves beneath the snow were trembling before John dared to peek out of his pile of snow and saw three Snow Demons, dressed in robes of black, freezing the Sand Demon in place.

He was a man, that Sand Demon, just a man like John’s dad or John himself. Hunched over in glass crystal, where the sand could no longer reach.

(And John didn’t notice it then, but maybe… that’s when his heart started racing around the demons.)

-

“He’ll be drafted into the Snow Corps, of course,” a man in black says when he comes to their door.

Mummy doesn’t let him in, despite always nagging Sherlock about proper human manners. She just narrows her eyes and smiles in a frighteningly calm way.

“I shouldn’t think so. Thank you. Good day, sir…”

But the man puts a hand on the door. Frost cackles as it scars the glass and wood, hissing at Mummy’s withdrawn fingers. Sherlock is standing, about to march over and tell the man off for threatening _his_ Mummy when he sees the man’s eyes.

Grey-blue. Grey-green. Then Grey-silver and violet. The glints of ice all etched into both irises. Just like Sherlock.

The man with reddish hair glances at Sherlock and puts his fat fingers back on his umbrella handle. For a while they both look at each other, glass reflecting glass. They can recognize their own kind.

“…My _brother_ … will be joining us, Mummy. You know it’s for the best,” says the man with the craftily carved smile (Liar, thinks Sherlock, stop doing that, you’re not human, you’re not like her, stop _doing that—_ ), “There’s no other place for demons in this world.”

The door shuts close with a brush of cold air, lightly frosted with intricate geometrical designs. Sherlock wants to take out his scalpel and scratch every microscopic bit of crystal off of his door, away from his mother’s eyes. He wants to shows that frost out and replace it with his own brand, carve out his place in ice that will never melt.

But then Mummy, illogically, throws her arms around him, ignoring the light blue tint her skin takes when she touches him, ignoring her own shivers. “It’s alright, dear, don’t listen to him. This is your home. You can come back whenever you like.”

Sherlock doesn’t move, only tries to reign in the whispering snow inside him. Only tries to memorize Mummy’s warmth, the only human who will touch him, and remember it forever because he knows Mummy is lying and that _man_ is stupidly right.

Yet Sherlock’s lips curve into a smile that would prick frost against your chest.

If there is no place in this world for demons, beside the Corps, then Sherlock will just have to _make_ one.

-

“Um,” John speaks up tentatively and nearly everyone in the class turns their heads to look at him, all expectant judging faces.

John’s the quiet one who hovers behind his sister and always wears long sleeves and flinches away from loud noises. John’s the professor’s pet who does all his work without question and never looks anyone in the eyes unless he has to.

He’s looking straight at the professor today though, not a tremble in sight.

“Yes, Watson?” the professor says kindly. All the professors have a soft spot for John Watson, yet another trait that marks him as _other_.

“I, um, was just wondering… can demons look like humans?”

No one speaks. A few boys drop their pencils in shock, mouthing to each other ‘no way’ can Watson have the balls to actually ask about those things!

Their professor just looks a bit flustered and has to look down at his shoes, as if the shiny leather will help him reorient his thoughts. He pushes his glasses up several times before he answers, “Well… yes.”

The class seems to break out into an explosive pandemonium of shouts, protests and shock. Some are shouting, ‘What?! I’ve never heard that before?!’ while others are hyperventilating, ‘What does that mean? Does that mean they’re with us now? They could be anywhere?!’ while others just look in disbelief at their professor, as if this is further evidence that school is bullshit.

But John just tightens his fingers around his pencil, a slight flush to his cheeks which he hides with a blank face. No one really notices though, absorbed in their own reactions to the news, demanding more explanations from their poor professor.

“Well, children, as you know, demons are often described as a personification of elemental power… sand, wood, lightning, snow, the list goes on! They can take any shape they wish to blend in with indigenous populations… and most prefer to look like… us.”

It could almost be comical, how wide their eyes were now. No one’s ever paid such rapt attention to his lecture before. Maybe he should add demons to the curriculum (that, John thinks to himself, would probably be not-good though.)

The class bursts into more questions and the professor twitches back and forth, almost afraid by the rows of wide glass eyes all watching him before he shouts, “Enough! Please! Nothing good comes of asking about demons. They might look like us sometimes but they’re still unpredictable. It’s _dangerous_ to be around them, understand? They’re like fire… they have to consume. They are as much element as they are living and it’s almost impossible to co-exist with them safely.”

They fall back into quiet then. The spell of a shiny new topic broken.

“But sir…” John, once again, is the only one to speak, “don’t they protect us…? In the Elemental Corps?”

The professor’s glasses slip down to his nose and this time he does not push them back up.

“…Yes…” comes the professor’s answer, hushed and trembling, “…Yes… I suppose they do.”

He doesn’t say what he wants to—( _God help us, but they do_ )—and John only feels his heart race again and can’t help but want to know _more_.

-

Sherlock finishes writing all the combinations of chemical reactions that he knows in his notebook (and honestly, aren’t there more efficient ways of note-taking than these tedious writing utensils? When will the government start distributing those computers?) while the lecture drones on. Gods, what a waste. But Sherlock has to stay, after all…

He smiles in that sensual way he’s noticed makes women (and some men) feel flustered in their seats. There’s still fear there, hidden and buried deep down in the holes of their eyes, unwilling to show itself in front of a Holmes, in front of a demon. Idiots. But there’s tolerance when he acts the part and Sherlock will act like one of these simpering fools until the end of this trivial University path if it gets him what he wants.

His brother is wrong, Sherlock smiles as he traces a bit of frost into another equation on his desk. Sherlock’s control is perfect.

-

“Excuse me…” John calls one day.

A polite woman answers the phone, happy and chipper as she’s supposed to be.

“I was wondering…” John continues, as casual as ever, “does your University offer any courses on Demons?”

Her splutter goes on for about two minutes before she tentatively tells him, “Yes, but only in minute detail. The basics about the laws about Demon presences in highly populated areas and who to call if you encounter a rogue demon. Some general history of what we know of their lore… some proposed theory course on how their anatomy, if they have any at all, must work…”

“Oh that sounds great! Can I take those online…? I’m a med student so—”

“I… are you _sure_?”

“Well why not?” John shrugs, used to people’s reactions to his odd obsession with demons. Harry tells him that if it were possible to be a Doctor for Demons that John would probably be one. A Demonarion or Demonologist. Whatever they’d be called. “Could be useful. You never know when you might run into one.”

You could be twelve and lost at night after waiting for parents that didn’t come to pick you up, for instance.

You could be thirteen again and running away from home.

“Sweetie, I rather doubt that with all the laws we’ve got in place nowadays, but if you insist…”

John’s signed up in all the courses that his course load can allow within twenty-four hours.

-

Another stack of shiny pamphlets are shoved into the blender while the second one is burning over the Bunsen burner when _he_ comes to Sherlock’s apartment to visit.

Sherlock feels a smirk twitching at his face when Mycroft’s nose turns up in disgust at the fumes. “Really, brother?” Mycroft carefully pulls the remains of a Snow Corps pamphlet from the fire, cooling it with a touch of crackling frost.

“Well, you hardly seem to accept my ‘no’s, Mycroft, so I had to improvise. Your pigheadedness is getting rather irritating, even a simple human can understand the word, ‘no.’ Or perhaps I’m giving the human masses a bit too much credit…” Sherlock muses from his upside-down position on the sofa.

“Enough of this… silly pandering, brother,” Mycroft sneers, wrapping his black cloak closer around him. “All demons are required by law to join the Corps, whether it pleases you or not. You are not an exception to the rule, despite your evidence to the contrary. You are not human, cease… _behaving_ as such!”

Sherlock’s eyes flash as the umbrella points towards him and a wall of ice surrounds him, protecting him from Mycroft’s sneak attack. The ice crinkles around him like a frosted dome of scorpions, all fighting against the other ice molecules from the enemy, all waiting to freeze another living cell.

Mycroft’s face is blue with silent anger and Sherlock only raises an eyebrow at him and doesn’t slide down from his position on the coach. Instead, he just grabs his violin from the side table and starts stringing a few discordant chords, watching as Mycroft umbrella hand twitches with each sound.

“Honestly, I would say that you’re the one behaving _human_ , what terrible control you have, Mycroft. Must be all that cake…”

“ _Sherlock…_ ” Mycroft starts, “the Council won’t tolerate your… rebellious phase… for long. They’ll send enforcers to _convince_ you to join. You won’t have a choice, then.”

The ice wall around Sherlock seems to tighten down against him.

“I was never given a choice in the first place.”

-

“John, you can’t do this!” Harry yells at him.

His fists are clenched under the table and he just looks at a spot on the wall just beyond Harry’s ear. But Harry’s still shouting. He can hear her. The words do register somewhat, like everything his Dad ever yelled at him, but at the same time, he can’t help but feel as if he’s observing a scene outside of himself and all he can think of is seeing that desert someday…

“You can’t go, you’ll get yourself killed just so you can get some freaky boner when you finally meet a fucking demon and it rips your head off!”

“Harry!” Clara looks scandalized, glancing about the restaurant at the over-curious ears of strangers, whispering about the strange threesome by the corner. “This is supposed to be John’s day to celebrate getting his medical degree. Leave it alone!”

“Oh yeah,” Harry takes another swig of despicable wine, “just brilliant, Claire. And then what? Keep pushing it off until his flight leaves? No fucking way. He has a problem and someone has to fucking tell him to quit it with the Demons and their fucking non-existent anatomy or whatever bullshit he comes up with this time, because he’s fucked!”

“ _Harriet, shut up,_ ” Clara hisses, grabbing her girlfriend’s arm and navigating her towards the bathroom. She sends an apologetic look towards John but it might as well be nothing because John doesn’t see it.

He’s still thinking of the desert. Somewhere amidst all of the shouting, there is still the Sand Demon nearly claiming his life and now the desert, ever whispering and John can’t just, he can’t let it go—

“I’m sorry,” he says when the waiter comes by and John has to pay the bill.

They both know he’s not apologizing to the staff.

-

“Sherlock…!”

He’s drifting, drifting up into an abyss of the highest loft of joy he has never felt (and this must be why humans do this, the feeling is incredible, he can see and calculate and make connections that he’d never find at this speed before, he is everything and everywhere and it doesn’t fucking matter if they look at him like he’s scum, like he’s an alien, because he is better than them, he is better than _all of them_ and he doesn’t need the fucking corps or fucking University or fucking—)

“… _Sherlock…!_ ”

The world can just shut up. Because he doesn’t need it. He’ll reconstruct all their silly little rules and then… and then… (and then what?)

“Sherlock!” the annoying voice sounds and his ice, so hungry, so _loud_ after so many fucking years buried deep inside when it just wants flesh, lashes out.

One week later and Sherlock is locked in the most isolated room in a human rehab.

(Demons don’t fall for humans drugs, after all.)

-

They call him ‘crazy legs Watson’ because Watson’s the fastest out of all their troop. Always quick to join the fray to pull a comrade out of battle, even if it’s against orders or just plain insane to jump in the middle of gunfire. Always quick to take the first night shift and never quite resting when it’s over. Always the first to do patrol. Always on the look-out.

Bill thinks Watson is just plain reckless but the other men don’t pay Watson’s antics any mind. If anything, it’s saved their asses and they’re just plain grateful to have another day in this godforsaken planet so they leave it alone.

But Bill notices a lot about Watson. Maybe it’s because John looks so fragile on the outside save for the hard line of his jaw the way he holds himself, maybe it’s contradiction of steel woven into the fabric of this frail looking body. John Watson might have muscles and a strong build like the rest of the men but something about him screams ‘cover me’ to Bill, who’s always had a bit of a saving-thing.

So Bill notices when Watson tenses if the men start to whisper about rumoured demons sightings by the other camps. He sees how Watson bites his pink delicate lips and just wants to pull out his gun and shoot out into the sands until all the Demons flee from them. Notices the faint bruise marks along Watson’s skin sometimes, when they shower, marks that don’t go away when a Demon touches you.

“Hey man,” Bill tells him quietly, when they’re sitting in the barracks as the other men play cards. “You know I got your back, right?”

Watson blinks slowly at him, as he always seems to, startled out of his own world.

“Wha…? Um, yeah. I’ve got yours too,” Watson smiles kindly and Bill feels his insides loop up in bits of loopy warmth and tense _want_.

“Yeah!” Bill says eagerly, scooting closer, “and you can tell me anything at all, whatever’s bothering you, I’ll take care of it, I promise!”

“Uh, sure,” Watson nods. Then frowns and Bill can’t help but think it charming. “Are _you_ alright? I mean, you don’t usually…”

“I just noticed how you react when the boys bring up… demons… that’s all. Just wanted to let you know that I understand.”

“R-Really?” Watson’s voice seems to hitch and Bill’s suddenly very glad to have started this conversation. “You mean it? S-so, did you come here because of them too?”

“Nah man, I just noticed, that’s all,” Bill scratches his ear and looks down at his knees.

When Watson lights up (because there’s no other damn way to describe that face), Bill thinks that this is his best decision ever.

(It’s not.)

-

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Sherlock leans back on his chair and thinks of twenty different ways he can alarm his so-called therapist by making a so-called attack or being ‘unreasonable’ once more but decides against it. He stares at her instead, watches her shiver with both fear and intrigue (as they always do, because humans are so stupid with their stupid little desires.) He almost smiles at her, if only to speed up the process of his release.

But no, this is a game after all. Between him and _that man_ , Mycroft.

He shrugs. A predictable reaction, granted, but tolerable to these doctors.

His therapist tries to clear her throat (probably to dispel that blush) and folds her hands against her clipboard. “Mr. Holmes, you have to say it.”

“Why? So that you can confirm that I’m transitioning? That I’m sober again? You’re my therapist. Observe,” Sherlock waves her off, shrugging off to think of how one might apply the Elemental theory with human inventions.

“Mr. Holmes,” she frowns. “You’re the first Snow Demon to come to our facility… it would... comfort… my colleagues if you would adhere to our rules and program. The next step to your adjustment is to admit your mistakes. There’s no harm in doing so.”

“Mistakes?” Sherlock laughs and the air drops into a chillier cold that makes her shiver. She glances fretfully at the thermometer on her digital watch and back up at Sherlock himself.

“Please, Mr. Holmes, you have to—”

The air returns to its former temperature, breathable and ideal for human breathing (but not for an Elemental Demon of the cold. But Sherlock has adapted, as all Snow Demons should do.) His therapist slumps back in relief, about to say something asinine so Sherlock just gestures around them to watch her twitch backwards (boring.)

“As you can see from my actions, I have complete control over my Element, regardless of any human drugs that I’ve ingested—”

“But,” her brow crinkles as she flips through her clipboard, “your file states that your senses were compromised, that you had looser instincts, you nearly froze your entire dorm—”

“Oh that’s a silly exaggeration written by my _brother_. Look at the video feed and the photographs of the scene. I merely froze a chair and my chemistry set, I didn’t touch any of the little mortals living in the same commune. The Snow Corps merely put me here as a precaution. But, as you can see, I had perfect control, even under the influence.”

He leans down and laces his fingers together, smirk widening as he watches the therapist swallow slowly, sweat trailing down her brow, before he adopts a more innocent and charming gaze.

“I’d say that my progress is even better than an average human addict’s, wouldn’t you?”

It doesn’t take long for Sherlock to charm the entire staff into his spell.

He gets out in two weeks, much to Mycroft’s displeasure, and begins the next steps to paving a path for himself in the human world.

-

When it happens, the Demon sighting, John’s troop is under heavy gunfire and they’ve already lost two men. John’s doing his best to keep Gordon alive, tying a tourniquet to try to stop heavy blood flow but part of John whispers it’s already too late, except John tells that part of him to shove it, and just focuses on dragging the other bodies to the building he’s using as cover.

This is John’s fault. He shouldn’t have jumped up at the mention of a Demon sighting from Gordon, shouldn’t have given away their position… Now they’re cornered… Now Murray is… is…

Murray is somewhere out there and all John can think of, under the pounding (delicious) throb of adrenaline, is _please, God, let him be alright_ because if any one of them desires to survive this onslaught, it’s Murray. Kind Murray who doesn’t complain about John’s thing for Demons, who just smiles and goes along with John’s animated lectures (confused at first, but shrugging and going along with it.) Murray should live.

He feels the sand begin to shift against his skin, like centipede’s legs by the millions twisting forward towards the battle and that’s when he knows.

There’s one here. A demon. Here, finally, after all these years, John will see one again and he feels his heart thump-thump-thumping, just as jittery and feather-light as the bits of sand rustling past his cheek and fingers. Like a whisper, a promise.

_I’m coming for you._

John rushes out, gun barely shaking in his hands (and even if it does, it’s not from fear but—)

Someone screams. John feels all the blood in his body sink to his boots and he can barely think, barely see, because, no, no, this can’t be happening, this wasn’t supposed to happen—

“ _Bill!_ ” he runs. His legs aren’t fast enough. The sand is faster, festering around a bloodied corpse on the ground, eating at the crimson. Always so thirsty, sand must be, everything sinks through it. It can never be satisfied. That’s why it always whispers as it critters over layers and layers of itself, because it wants to be full.

And nothing can fill it.

Fuck that, John thinks, and he keeps shooting at the giant scorpion like thing that is tearing at the gash on Bill’s stomach. Fuck all the shit they tell us about Demons, he thinks. He shoots and he dives into the swirling living stomach of desert sand.

(” _Don’t be stupid, humans can’t fight against them_.”)

John reaches for Bill, sees those eyes and the brightness of them reflected in the sun and pulls, despite the whipping burns he feels against his cheek, the rushes of sand trying to dig into the crevice between his collar and his oh-so-vulnerable-neck.

(“ _Then why do they join the Corps then_?”)

NO, he wants to shout, but keeps his lips stubbornly pursed together. Pictures them stitched, no, not stitched. There are openings in stitches. He pictures them glued shut, sealed like the steel in bunkers and lifts with all his strength.

( _No answer there_.)

Listens to the gloop of liquid lapping down into the greedy sand and even tries, foolishly, to kick it away. But how can he when it is shapeless, adaptable, everywhere. John just rushes forward with all his might, the heavy weight is nothing, he can do this, yes.

( _Because they want to, perhaps_?)

Gunfire. Fuck. Where is coming from. Where did the enemy even _go_ earlier? Are they employing the Sand Corps? Fuck, he needs to call some Snow Elementals but he can’t because Bill, oh god, Bill, please—

( _But that answer seems more frightening to Professor Doyle and he never says it_.)

His shoulder is blasted apart. That’s all John can describe it as. He sees chunks of flesh and blood storm down on the ground, tries to turn so that Bill’s body is covered by him and tries to will cold skin into warmth.

Snowflakes touch his cheek.

He remembers crying.

He remembers praying _God, God, God_ and _Bill, Bill, Bill_ and regretting never finishing that sentence.

-

Acting human is boring. Tedious. How do humans live like this, so absorbed in their little lives and unable to see the obvious built around them everywhere in so many equations?

Sherlock puts another nicotine patch on, lets his mind wander.

His cases are all done (at least the interesting ones) and his reputation prevents Mycroft from openly suggesting Sherlock to join the Corps again. (That would be another hell entirely, his mind would turn into sluggish molasses and he would surely die of worse boredom and tedium.) Lestrade’s position as head Enforcer of the Yard certainly helps.

Humans are too easy to please. A few smiles. A few favours and they think you’re theirs when Sherlock is playing them as well as his violin.

But the novelty of human cases and problems has worn away weeks ago and Sherlock wants to shoot at the walls until the building crumbles down or something more interesting, more enticing holds his attention.

Perhaps he should get thrown into rehab again, destroy their system?

Or he could toy around with the CCTV that he knows that Corps are spying on him through. Maybe see if Necromancy or Soul Elemancy is possible? He has read several outlandish theories about souls existing consistently through universes, about the possibility of balance across greater planes of existence. There is merit to that idea, an explanation, perhaps, of this phenomena of Elemental Demons and their wild powers.

Being a human detective is losing its appeal. Experimenting with other Demons, while living as humanly as possible to avoid the Corps, sounds more appealing by the moment…

-

I let him die, John thinks.

But that’s silly, they would tell him if they knew his thoughts (Harry, Clara, Ella, fuck) while they would look at him with knowing eyes. This is what happens when you are near demons. This is what happens to all humans.

His cheeks have scattered and peppered bruises of spirals and loose curls, like clouds becoming ribbons. All from the Sand Demon’s touch. His shoulder will always have that starburst pattern of dots and dashes, from gunfire and Demons and when he moves, he thinks he’ll always feel that phantom pain of being shot again and again.

He doesn’t even want to think of Bill’s body, painted in those bruises, cremated so his family wouldn’t have to look at him. If John had been faster, if John hadn’t been distracted. If, if, if, if, damn it, damn it, why couldn’t John have prayed harder, moved faster, why—

He almost wishes the Snow Demons had frozen him and Bill together, because then he wouldn’t have felt anything and Bill’s last few breaths would have been preserved. Maybe they would have waited through time together. Maybe they’d wake up in the distant future, when medicine could have saved Bill and then John would grab Bill’s hand and say… say what?

I’m sorry I was so driven on seeing just the wounded and the demons. I’m sorry I didn’t just look at you?

What a fucking lie.

John hates himself. Because even now, he’s still looking, still trying to find more glances of black cloaks and eerie eyes, feel the breaths of cold against his skin to comfort his Sand marks. Part of him is still fucking grateful for the Snow Corps saving him, and his fucking heart won’t stop fluttering at the thought of them and he fucking hates himself.

“I’m sorry,” John whispers at the funeral. “I’m so sorry.”

If he limps, it’s because John pictures Bill’s phantom, holding on to his leg, still stubbornly surviving beside him.

(“If it had to be anyone, then you were the one who should have lived.”)

-

They avoid him more obviously than before. Whisper about the Freak Demon who gathers body parts at his home and Lestrade, won’t you please do something about that? Can’t you see that he’s unstable? But Lestrade just gives a nervous shake. He knows that he can’t solve the impossible cases with Sherlock and Sherlock preens at that (they need him, these humans, even if they hate him, because they know just as he does that he’s better—)

Molly Hooper, too, is too scared to protest to Sherlock’s requests. Always careful to avoid being in the same room as him, only speaking up when he does something unethical to the corpses she cares for or if her girlfriend has just sent her a message on her phone.

Weak of her, to rely on such a crutch. He works better alone. That’s what gives him control.

He nearly smirks at yet another hidden camera in the morgue’s lab. Mycroft again. Asinine bug. Sherlock makes a note to call Mummy later this week, he won’t be like _him_. Mummy will never be abandoned by Sherlock, never, ever. She may be human, but she’s his human, after all. Not boring or stupid like the rest of them, never looking at him like ( _error, data inconsistent_ ) he’s bad code.

 _Are you sure_ , a voice like Mycroft corrupts his ear.

 _Piss off,_ Sherlock wants to say. But this isn’t Mycroft. This is an extension of his mind. And he slams the slide so hard against the microscope that it breaks into several jagged pieces and the bits that they cut against him only release bursts of snow that eagerly clutch at the microscope, ravage its outsides.

Sherlock hisses and calls the snow back just as two sets of footsteps (one heavier set, Stamford, and another with a cane, a stranger, why? New case? New Doctor? Who—) come in.

“Looks different from my day.”

Former Doctor. Military from the stance and firm jaw and… ah. Sherlock drops the jagged shards of the slide and strides over to lift up the man’s chin.

“…Sand marks… Sand Demon… either Afghanistan or Iraq… You’re a former army Doctor…!” and to Sherlock’s confusion, his voice comes out as a tone of surprise and… something else. Something giddy and… what do humans call it…? _Wonder._

He wants to trace the marks on this man’s skin, to copy them and photocopy them and press them between pages and preserve them and memorize every detail, wondering how and when such delicate yet precise marks could have been made. Could Sherlock do something like this? Other Snow Demons? Do they leave marks too? He needs to experiment, make notes and—

“Ahem,” Stamford hides his expression behind his mouth.

The man just stares at Sherlock without any trace of fear or even discomfort. (Odd, such inconsistent behavior. Why?) The man’s chin moves slightly to the side, as if studying Sherlock’s eye colour out of… out of what, exactly? Why is this expression so, so…?

Sherlock’s chest won’t stop feeling _warm_ , warm in a way Sherlock has never felt before—

“So… should I leave you two alone, then?” Stamford asks in tones of human innuendo and frightened surprise. He even steps closer to the other man, as if to pull him away from Sherlock and Sherlock’s eyes narrow, he’s not done his deductions, not done at all—

“Oh, um, sorry,” the man steps away, leaving Sherlock’s fingers oddly _cold_ (anomaly, he can’t feel more cold than he already is, it’s not cold at all), as the man looks away with a light pink blush.

Ah. It’s… not quite attraction but… _fascination._

“…I just, well, I’ve never…” the man runs a hand through his hair, avoiding Sherlock’s gaze as Sherlock tries to process this newfound discovery, “…well, you’re a _snow demon_ , aren’t you?”

Sherlock makes his face blank and he pulls his hands back. But inside, his chest is quivering again at the breathy tone of this man’s voice and _what does that mean, how does to compute this—_

“Yes. I am. Rather obvious.”

He raises an eyebrow as the man’s ears become crimson as well.

“I just, that’s amazing!” the man says and then twitches, as if to cover up his mouth, but stands his ground now that the words have been said, looking Sherlock straight in the eye. Not a speck of fear in them.

For the first time, Sherlock wants to… wants to grab another human being (besides Mummy, but even then) and shake them to see if they are _real_ because there is no way that this man can possibly exist at all—

“Really?” Sherlock replies coolly instead.

And the man just nods, undeterred. “Yeah.”

“That’s not what most people say…” Sherlock tests him.

That brow of marked skin furrows, “What do people normally say?”

“They don’t. They fear. You can see it in their eyes.”

The man just laughs a little darkly then.

“Too stupid to be afraid,” he says lightly, “of something so… well… incredible.”

And that’s when Sherlock decides he’s keeping him.


End file.
